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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English Further reading

narrator

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music | 1996 | | Copyright

narrator (It. testo, ‘witness’). Singer or speaker in oratorios, cantatas, and sometimes operas who tells the basic story of the work, normally in recit. Among the first works to use a narrator was Monteverdi's dramatic madrigal Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624). In the Passion settings of the 17th and 18th cents. the narrator is often called the Evangelist, e.g, in Bach's St Matthew Passion. Narr. are used in many 20th-cent. works, e.g. Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, Vaughan Williams's An Oxford Elegy, and Honegger's Le Roi David. The Male and Female Ch. in The Rape of Lucretia (1946) act as narrators.

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MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "narrator." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "narrator." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O76-narrator.html

MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE. "narrator." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. 1996. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O76-narrator.html

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narrator

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English | 2009 | Copyright

nar·ra·tor / ˈnarātər/ • n. a person who narrates something, esp. a character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem. ∎ a person who delivers a commentary accompanying a movie, broadcast, piece of music, etc. DERIVATIVES: nar·ra·to·ri·al / ˌnarəˈtôrēəl/ adj.

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"narrator." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

"narrator." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-narrator.html

"narrator." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-narrator.html

Learn more about citation styles

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